Buyout's big Winners aren't Small Farmers

Source from:  Louisville (KY) Courier-Journal 09/14/2004

Any day now, the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives will begin the job of reconciling versions of tobacco buyout legislation each chamber has passed. Or maybe members will get smart and chuck them both. That would mean a few billion dollars less roiling through the Kentucky economy in the next few years, but in terms of public policy, it would probably be a wise decision. After all, as research by the Environmental Working Group is illustrating, a tobacco buyout — even more than other farm subsidies — won't help the small farmer it's supposedly designed to protect. By far the largest share of the money would go to huge corporations and large-scale farmers instead. And it's disingenuous to say the goal is to help rural communities when so much of the money would go to folks living in cities who have long been disassociated from the farm. These days, many quota holders who would be generously rewarded just rent out their right to grow tobacco. Meanwhile, the person actually tilling the soil would get a fraction of the amount. For example, 213 individuals, businesses and estates in Louisville's ZIP code 40207 — the prosperous East End area running from St. Matthews to the Ohio River, through Indian Hills and Mockingbird Valley — would get money from a tobacco buyout. Almost none of them grow tobacco. Most lease their quota to actual farmers. Some city folk have even sold their farms to developers, who have filled the land with subdivisions. It's amazing that any congressman from California or New York would see the need to "compensate" such people for the end of the tobacco program. Here's something else the Environmental Working Group found: The House version of this legislation would create 462 "instant millionaires." In North Carolina, 243 recipients would get more than $1 million over five years. The biggest winner would get more than $8 million. Kentucky, having mostly small-scale farmers, would have only 14 instant millionaires. Indiana would have none. By far the majority of our farmers would get chicken feed — from about $12 to $1,000 a year. The fact is, "For every working farm that actually grows tobacco today, there are nearly eight prospective tobacco buyout recipients," the Environmental Working Group found. In a time of great deficits and great societal needs, this doesn't seem like a responsible way to appropriate money. Yet, in Kentucky, the sense of entitlement is high. Looking at the numbers, it's easy to see why. In this small state, 151,434 of us are slated to get buy-out checks. The recipients include universities, trusts and insurance companies, as well as politicians and doctors. No wonder Kentucky hasn't been unable to see beyond tobacco. Enditem